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Un-skippable Cutscenes
Un-skippable Cutscene | Leads to player frustration When used correctly cutscenes can have a huge effect on the emotional responses of the players. However there are some people who would prefer to just play the game and are not interested in the development of the stories. For this reason you should always allow the player to skip a cut scene if they so desire. There are instances in which an un-skippable cutscene can cause frustrations even for gamers who love to watch them. Poor placement of these un-skippable cutscenes is what can make them so annoying. If it is placed right before a difficult part of the level and when the player dies (because they will) they have to watch the ENTIRE cutscene again as there is no way to skip it. Examples Max: The Curse of Brotherhood In a difficult section of this game there is an un-skippable cutscene of a large monster beginning its pursuit of you. Immediately after this cutscene you are required to preform a string of difficult tasks while the monster is continually getting closer to you. This forces you to not only complete these difficult tasks, but to complete them on a timer. While playing the game I found my self getting very frustrated at the cutscene as I was forced to watch it over and over every time I failed to complete that section of the game. . . Example 2: Destiny Another frustrating example of cutscenes that cannot be skipped are in the Bungie game, Destiny. After players complete the main story it is encouraged to go back and play earlier missions. Even when a player is re-visiting these missions there is no option to skip through the cutscenes. This can already be frustrating during a 1st play-through but not having the option to skip on the replay makes this an even greater offense. Kingdom Hearts In the original Kingdom Hearts, the player reaches a very hard boss battle against Dragon Maleficent near the end of the game, but before that boss battle the player watches about 10 minutes worth of cutscenes before the boss fight actually begins. The boss battle itself is very hard and so dying mutiple times on the boss is inevitable, but after each death the player must watch the unskippable 10 minute cutscene again and again before they can fight the boss again. I was extremely irritated by this as I had to spend 10 minutes watching the cutscene over and over again after each death because I could not skip it. Final Fantasy XIII Final Fantasy XIII has one of the longest opening cutscenes I have seen in a game. The whole sequence from pressing start to when you actually start controlling the player is about 4 minutes. Why is there so much exposition required? Example: Battlefield 2: Bad Company (DICE, Electronic Arts) While getting to last part of the missions, which are difficult to complete, the game introduces unskippable cut-scenes which the player needs to view again and again due to the difficulty of the mission. This reduces player engagement. Games should offer the player a chance to skip the cut scenes as a whole.